


a thousand miles from home

by nuttyshake



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hook-Up, Minor Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra), Mutually Unrequited, Past Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Past Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, catradora and glimbow are still endgame i'm just having some fun in the middle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25391905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuttyshake/pseuds/nuttyshake
Summary: “You know,” Catra reflects out loud, still saccharine in tone, “I see the way you look at me sometimes.”Glimmer feels herself go red - out of embarrassment, or maybe because of outrage. She can’t exactly help that Catra’s hot, and she’s pretty sure she’d have to look pretty hard to find anyone who doesn’t agree. Still, Catra is hard-pressed not to let it go.“Does your boyfriend know about it? No no no no, wait - doesAdoraknow about it?”“Catra,” Glimmer starts, calmly enough, “we’re not gonna hook up to get our minds off our exes.”
Relationships: Catra/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 116





	a thousand miles from home

It’s been three months since Bow left Bright Moon for his dads’ house, asking to be left alone, and if Glimmer had to single-handedly fix a relationship, she should probably worry about her own first.

It’s not like Catra and Adora have ever been particularly sensitive about her situation, either. As much as she knows it wouldn’t have been fair to ask that of them, they have never really held back on their public displays of affection, nor made an effort to keep their voices down at night despite Glimmer sleeping in the room right next to them. Despite how much their recent break-up broke her heart, she knows no one would blame her for taking that time to figure herself out instead of trying to meddle in her friends' relationship.

Yet here she is now, teleporting right into the Scorpion Kingdom to deliver a message to Catra, because Adora is being stubborn and insufferable and refuses to come out of her room and go tell Catra herself.

Glimmer is received by Scorpia and Perfuma in the main hall, which now looks very different from what the Horde used to be. Perfuma’s influence is easily detectable in the open-air padillions, the flourishing gardens, the villas that make up the main compound, so much so that the whole place reads like a love letter to the Flower Princess. Glimmer smiles at them, sees the love in their eyes and can’t help feeling inadequate.

“We put her where the barracks were,” Scorpia supplies helpfully. “It was the only place she didn’t respond to as negatively as the others.” 

Glimmer figures there aren’t many places in the world that hold as many negative connotations for Catra as the Horde, even though it’s almost unrecognizable now, but she also doesn’t have that many friends to stay with either.

“We’ve been… worried about her,” Perfuma confesses, her voice hushed down to a whisper, as if Catra could come out any moment and gut her for revealing her weakness. “She keeps asking for milk.”

“Oh - that’s not good.”

“And buckets of ice cream.”

“We keep reminding her she’s lactose intolerant, but she won’t listen,” Scorpia flares up, panic hitting her full force now that she has someone to share it with. “We think she’s on the path to self-destruction.”

Glimmer sighs, relieved by the fact that at least, _at least_ , Catra isn't planning on pulling any more levers to destroy the world. Not yet, anyway. "Right. I'm gonna go check on her."

"Good luck," Perfuma says, in an exasperated tone that lets her know even _she_ has given up by now. Scorpia nods quite uselessly beside her as she shows Glimmer the way.

Glimmer knows Scorpia and Perfuma are some of the kindest, most understanding people out there, and hearing them admit defeat would probably lead anyone who doesn't know Catra well to give up, too. Glimmer, though, knows her enough to know kindness isn't always the best approach.

The barracks aren't the barracks anymore, or so Scorpia tells her. Glimmer hasn't seen much of the Fright Zone except for the Black Garnet chamber she's been kept prisoner in, so all the details of the reconstruction Scorpia talks of fall on deaf ears, but Scorpia clearly finds it important to point out that the barracks have been rearranged into several guest rooms, and that Catra absolutely wanted to be put into the first one on the left, despite the former Force Captain rooms, including Catra's own, being also available and much more comfortable.

"Glimmer's here to see you," Scorpia calls in after a double knock. Catra's answer is a loud groan, but she doesn't protest much more than that, so Glimmer figures it's as safe to come in as it can ever be when dealing with Catra.

Surprisingly enough, she is not backed up in the corner of the room, growling like a wild animal, or doing her best impression of Mermista digging in her spoon in cans upon cans of ice cream. She is, instead, lying face down on the bed, completely silent and motionless in the shadow of the morning moon.

Glimmer shoots her best shot right away, because she doesn't have much time to lose. "Adora misses you."

Catra's ears twitch on her head at the sound of Adora's name, but she doesn't otherwise move.

"She’s worried about you," she insists. "Are you really gonna do this to her?"

A throaty laugh comes muffled against the pillow. "If she was so worried, she could have come herself.”

“Would that have fixed anything?”

“Yes.” Catra finally lifts her head to look at her, chin propped up on one hand. “But she’s made it very clear where her priorities stand.”

Glimmer scoffs: “She was on an _intergalactic mission_. Sorry she didn’t answer your calls, I guess.”

“No, this isn’t about one time.” Catra squeezes her eyes closed. “I’ve gone days without seeing or hearing from her. _Weeks_. She’s out there doing what she has to, and I understand, but-”

She breaks off there, the sound dying in her throat. Glimmer has the sneaky suspicion that what she’s actually doing is choking back a sob, but she can’t be sure, because Catra is trying to smother herself with the pillow again.

Glimmer tries to appeal to her newfound morals, then, to her sensibility. She knows the last thing Catra would want is to go back on her personal growth, and she’s leaping on the bed, ready to remind Catra of that and go on a tirade about how much the universe needs Adora right now, when she sees them. 

Marks on the wall next to Catra’s bed - no, not marks, drawings. Of Adora and Catra. They look more like stick figures, the kind that little children would draw, but it’s undeniably them as Glimmer first saw them, except Adora’s face is scratched out. The marks are old and washed away by time, but they’re still there, even after renovating the place entirely. Glimmer wonders if it was Catra herself who kept Scorpia from erasing them, or if Scorpia understood their importance on their own.

“But I need her,” Catra continues as if she never stopped talking, and this time, she doesn’t - maybe can’t - hold back her tears. “More than she knows. And I’m not doing this to punish her, I just- I can’t _do_ this anymore.”

Glimmer traces the drawings, her heartbreak only a pale imitation of what Catra must be feeling right now, and she understands why Catra insisted on staying here.

“This was your bed,” Glimmer says. Catra and Adora’s bed, she means. “Your room.”

Catra waits for the sobs to subside before replying. “We were forced to share the barracks with everyone else, but I slept in her bed every night. I destroyed it when she left, so it’s not this one, exactly, but it stands in its place.” Glimmer hears a sound of claws raking down the mattress, but no ripping. “I’d tear it apart too, if it meant anything to me.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Glimmer turns her head in her direction, sees her still facedown, her shoulders shaking, and Catra’s pain hits her in waves. Glimmer lays a hand on her back in a clumsy attempt at comfort, and Catra stills. “You’re learning not to destroy the things you love.”

“Oh, _am I_?”

“Which is why you should be talking to Adora right now.”

Catra’s laughter sounds bitter, and terrible, and too much like that one time she set out to pull a lever and break the world. She sits up with apparent ease, pierces Glimmer with a look, and Glimmer knows she has to brace herself for whatever is coming. “See, I would, but it’s just _so_ hard to talk things out without your boyfriend's interference."

Glimmer drops her hand from Catra's back, the pain she feels now entirely her own. She really believed Catra had changed, but - maybe she hasn't. She would've known better than to cross that line with Glimmer. "Leave Bow out of this."

"He left you too, didn't he?" While Glimmer understands that she could've come across as patronising to Catra, she really _felt_ for her. Catra, on the other hand, is being pitying for the sake of hurting her. "Is this why you're so obsessed with fixing things between me and Adora? Because you couldn't do the same with Arrow Boy?"

"Shut _up,"_ Glimmer growls, and almost packs a punch. Catra catches her clenched fist in her hand, almost tenderly, and stares her down. "You're deflecting. Don't make this about me."

“Am I?” Catra’s voice is sickly sweet, her thumb rubbing up and down Glimmer’s palm. “Don’t you feel like you could use a distraction, too?”

The truth? Glimmer could use several distractions. Glimmer could use anything that kept her from spending the whole day locked up in her room, wondering how she could have possibly messed up enough to drive away the best thing in her life. She just isn’t sure _Catra_ is the way to go, and it’s not to maintain any moral high ground - she lost that long ago, when wanting to prove Adora and Bow wrong brought Horde Prime over to Etheria - but because Catra wouldn’t even have to push much to drag Glimmer into whatever she’s planning.

Whatever darkness Catra fights against every day - whatever anger, whatever impulse to self-destruction - dwells in Glimmer’s heart, too. Sometimes, more often than Glimmer would like, hers and Catra’s feed off each other. 

Catra’s other hand is busy cupping Glimmer’s face, claw tapping against Glimmer’s cheek and slowly scratching down to the base of her neck, and Glimmer realizes Catra’s suggesting something so much more dangerous than portal-opening and attempted murder.

“You know,” Catra reflects out loud, still saccharine in tone, “I see the way you look at me sometimes.”

Glimmer feels herself go red - out of embarrassment, or maybe because of outrage. She can’t exactly help that Catra’s _hot_ , and she’s pretty sure she’d have to look pretty hard to find anyone who doesn’t agree. Still, Catra is hard-pressed not to let it go.

“Does your boyfriend know about it?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Glimmer explodes, then gets mad at herself about it. She shouldn’t be indulging Catra when she clearly just wants to rile Glimmer up, but also, her good name is at stake. “As a matter of fact, Catra, he knows that I find other people attractive.”

“Someone who lives under your same roof?” Catra insists. “In the room next to yours? No no no no, wait - does _Adora_ know about it?”

“Catra,” Glimmer starts, calmly enough, “we’re not gonna hook up to get our minds off our exes.”

“Why _not_ ,” Catra whines. “Bow left you, didn’t he? To push a guy like that over the edge - oof, Sparkles, what did it even _take_?”

Glimmer recognizes the attempt at manipulation, but does nothing to keep herself from falling for it. Something about Catra knowing to strike where it hurt the most. She thinks about Bow, about her always lashing out for fear of losing him, about her misplaced jealousy. “A whole lot of being me.”

And maybe Glimmer is just fooling herself, but Catra doesn’t look pitying anymore. It’s almost like she understands, and if she does - by the sound of her laughter, Catra definitely hates it. “Bow and Adora - I think they’re too good for us.”

Glimmer wishes she had a bottle to drink out of, or - hell, even a carton of milk, but as far as she could tell from the full recycling bin at the foot of the bed, they were all empty. “Yeah.”

Sighing, Catra drops her hand from Glimmer’s face, and Glimmer, well… misses the warmth. She hasn’t had anything like it since Bow dropped a last kiss on her forehead, right before packing his things and leaving Bright Moon in the night.

“I think we need them too much,” Catra’s voice comes again, breaking her out of her reverie, and though she isn’t touching Glimmer, she’s still close enough that her breath tickles Glimmer’s ear. A reminder that Catra is still very much in reach, should Glimmer need her. “I think - maybe we need to learn how to be without them.”

Glimmer isn’t sure what she’s feeling. She misses Bow, that one’s kind of a given. She feels shame, both for pushing him to leave in the first place and for coming here wanting to help Adora, only to find herself nose-to-nose with her ex-girlfriend. Mostly, though, she feels a weird sort of excitement bubbling under her skin, which makes her hate herself even more.

This is what being a bad person feels like. This is what she tries to cover up with all her glitter and her sparkles, what she hopes her friends never find out because if they did, they would despise her.

How does one _live_ with so much potential for doing the wrong thing, whereas people like Adora and Bow just - seemed to _know_ what was right in their heart of hearts, without anyone having to tell them? Would anyone ever be good enough for either of them? Would _she_?

Is it any wonder that, when faced with wanting Adora, Catra tried to destroy reality instead? Can Glimmer, of all people, blame her when Catra is possibly the only person in the world who could _understand_?

Catra stops an inch away from her lips, and Glimmer realizes - understanding goes both ways.

She knows exactly what Catra needs.

Kissing Catra is disorienting. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it’s nothing like kissing Bow. Her taste is so different from his - tangy but not excessively so, though there’s also a hint of sweetness there - that for a moment it redefines what a kiss is for Glimmer. It feels less like coming home at the end of a long day and more like a spike in blood pressure that’s there and gone, only leaving tingling skin behind.

Glimmer pulls back almost right away, needing to wrap her head around the fact that this is really _happening_ , but Catra captures her lips again, her hands sinking in Glimmer's hair to wrap pink locks around her finger. It doesn't hurt until some of Glimmer's hair catches on Catra's claw, and when it does, Glimmer's mouth opens on a sigh. Catra does it again; pulls on Glimmer's hair just hard enough to elicit a reaction, and again Glimmer embarrasses herself - only to lose any sense of shame when Catra uses that opportunity to lick right into her mouth.

If she wasn't already on the bed, Glimmer's pretty sure her knees would have given. Bow was always too straightforward, too apprehensive to tease her - too worried about making her feel cared for to ever give Glimmer less than she wanted, any later than she wanted it, and she loved him for it. 

She realizes now that being loved and being desired are two _very_ different things, and every flick of Catra's tongue against her lips, her teeth, the roof of her mouth, is like flames licking at her gut.

“You really do taste like glitter,” Catra murmurs against her, then slides her hand down the side of Glimmer’s neck to clutch the front of her dress, pulling her down on top of her.

Well. This is new. Glimmer’s never had a girl under her like this, and she doesn’t really know what to do. She figures switching wouldn’t solve anything, either, so she decides to follow Catra’s lead and run her hands down her body.

She wasn't lying when she said Bow knew about her having thoughts on Catra. She’s never exactly _hidden_ it, so really, the whole Princess Alliance knew she sometimes pictured her as a sexy seductress she had an ongoing romantic rivalry with. Having crushes on one’s enemy is _totally_ normal, and having crushes on one’s friend, as far as she can tell, very common. Hell, Adora still swoons whenever Huntara shows up, and even Bow sometimes went too far with his hero worship of Sea Hawk. But that was okay, because neither of them _acted_ on it. 

Glimmer? Glimmer is the one making out with Catra on what is essentially Adora’s old bed, in Catra and Adora’s old room, next to a sketch of the two of them on the wall. No matter how much she tells herself that she’s only doing it to help a friend, it’s almost blasphemous how good and _guilty_ it makes her feel. It's just like Catra to put all of herself into every little thing she does, because she's holding Glimmer gently and peppering her face with kisses like she adores her - like she’s _Adora_ , her brain supplies - which is obviously not the case.

Glimmer’s always been curious about what Catra does to draw those noises out of her girlfriend. Now that she has some idea - the thought crosses her mind for all of a second before being stomped down on, just evidence to dispose of. She’s technically not doing anything wrong - she and Bow are broken up, which Bow was very clear on, and so are Catra and Adora, though hopefully not for much longer if Glimmer’s plan works. If Glimmer’s enjoying herself a little too much in the process, no one needs to know. But - she kind of hates that Catra is Adora’s. 

Damn. All the crap she gave Bow, and she _really_ had no leg to stand on. She’ll make sure he knows, if he ever comes back. _When_ he comes back.

Catra’s close to her breaking point. Glimmer realizes that because Catra’s sure touches get weaker and weaker, slowing down to a stop just when Glimmer tastes salt on her lips. Sniffles give way to sobs, Catra pushes Glimmer away abruptly, and Glimmer sees for herself that Catra’s crying - ugly, painful crying that bursts out of her and wracks her body from the inside. Glimmer wants to give her comfort - touch her shoulder, maybe - but knows she will be turned away again; so she waits for Catra to finish processing her grief.

She has no idea if Catra enjoyed kissing her or not, and really, it’s the least of her concerns. Catra thought she could just move on from Adora - could just replace her with someone else, easy as that. Now that she knows what that would feel like -

“Are you going to talk things out with Adora now?”

Glimmer’s afraid Catra will hiss at her and lash out, but she doesn’t. She looks too broken-hearted to do much more than bury her head into her knees and try to catch her breath.

Catra will reconsider, though. Glimmer knows she will. She’ll stay in this place for a couple more days, maybe, just to keep up appearances, and come back to Bright Moon eventually, where Adora will be waiting for her with open arms. They will realize there is no losing the love that saved the world, and never _not_ be okay again.

Maybe - and she knows it’s just wishful thinking - Bow will be there for her, too.

Before closing the door behind her, leaving Catra in the darkness again, she touches her lips one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing a fic about Catra and Adora breaking up in the future but finding their way back to each other when this came to mind, and I just _had_ to write it as its own fic. No idea if the Catradora break-up fic will ever see the light of day and if it will be set in the same universe as this one, so I kept myself very vague on what caused all of them to break up, just in case I need to revisit it later. I am a multishipper so just know that while Catradora and Glimbow are still absolutely endgame for me, I stand with Molly when she talks about Glitra having a passionate love affair, lmao.  
> Also this is my first attempt at writing in present tense. Hopefully I didn't blow it.  
> Comments are always very appreciated! (Bonus point if you find the Killing Eve semi-reference)


End file.
